Who is winning the AI training copyright fight?
Do AI developers need permission to train on copyrighted work, and how are courts, governments and rights holders answering that in 2025-26?
Courts have split on whether models contain copies. Verdicts are rare, and the money is moving through settlements and licences. Governments are diverging too: the UK has shelved a training exception while the US executive branch now argues training is fair use.
KeyStoryRule or law
- Meta delays its new business terms to 20 November after publishers object to AI scraping
Meta’s new business terms appear to let it scrape publishers’ sites for training; after objections it delays them to 20 November.
- Judge hears Anthropic’s fair-use defence over song lyrics in music publishers’ case
The first generative-AI lyrics case reaches a fair-use hearing; the judge does not rule and doubts the publishers’ market-harm claim.
- Third Circuit upholds ruling that ROSS’s AI training on Westlaw was not fair use
Reported as the first federal appellate ruling on AI training, it rejects fair use where the AI product competes with the source.
- US Justice Department backs OpenAI’s fair-use defence in New York Times case
The US government sides with OpenAI as the Times case reaches summary judgment.
- Delhi High Court refuses ANI’s bid to stop OpenAI training on its news
The Delhi High Court provisionally treats storing news for training as fair dealing.
- Court gives final approval to Anthropic’s $1.5bn settlement with book authors
A $1.5bn settlement prices the use of pirated books for training.
- Rule, In forceUKUK Copyright and AI report
The UK abandons its preferred opt-out training exception and waits for more evidence.
- Warner Music settles with Suno and agrees licensed AI music models for 2026
The music majors trade lawsuits for licensed models and output controls.
- Munich court rules ChatGPT’s memorised song lyrics infringe copyright (GEMA v OpenAI)
Munich reaches the opposite view on memorised lyrics and treats weights as reproductions.
- UK High Court rejects Getty’s secondary copyright claim against Stability AI
London holds model weights store no copies, narrowing claims against models trained abroad.
- Rule, In forceEUGPAI Code of Practice
The EU’s GPAI code sets the baseline expectation that model providers respect opt-outs and limit infringing outputs.
- UK consults on letting AI developers train on works unless rights holders opt out
The UK proposed a training exception with an opt-out for rights holders.
- Delhi High Court hears ANI’s copyright suit against OpenAI over ChatGPT training
ANI took OpenAI to the Delhi High Court over ChatGPT training in November 2024.
- Hamburg court rules LAION’s dataset building is lawful research text and data mining
A German court found building the LAION-5B dataset was lawful research text and data mining.
- Major record labels sue AI music generators Suno and Udio for copyright infringement
The three largest record labels sued two AI music generators over training on their recordings in June 2024.
- New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement
The New York Times suit put news publishers at the centre of the US fight.
- Getty Images starts High Court proceedings against Stability AI in London
Getty’s London claim opened the first UK test of training on scraped images.
Related developments
Connected developments not on this line
- DevelopmentElvis Presley’s rightsholders sue Anthropic over training on 274 songs23 Oct 2026, Enforcement or court case, United States
- DevelopmentCanadian news publishers including CBC and the Globe sue OpenAI for copyright breach29 Nov 2024, Enforcement or court case, Canada
- DevelopmentJapan’s copyright council sets out how Article 30-4 applies to AI training and outputs15 Mar 2024, Policy, Japan
- DevelopmentAxel Springer licenses Politico, Business Insider, Bild and Welt content to OpenAI13 Dec 2023, Deal, Germany
- DevelopmentAuthors Guild and 17 novelists sue OpenAI over training GPT on their books20 Sep 2023, Enforcement or court case, United States
- DevelopmentArtists file class action against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt13 Jan 2023, Enforcement or court case, United States